Saleswoman who faked doctor's note about cancer treatment and made up evidence of sex assaults in two failed employment tribunals is jailed for four years

A saleswoman who faked a doctor's note about her cancer treatment and made up evidence of sex assaults in multiple failed employment tribunals has been jailed.

Louise Gallagher, 50, produced bogus evidence while suing distribution giant Bunzl for sex discrimination.

She also mounted a separate unfair dismissal claim against health product supplier Essity. 

In both cases, Gallagher put forward false evidence designed to bolster her allegations of sexual assault.

This included doctoring a genuine Transport for London (TfL) email to support her lie, and maintaining the existence of CCTV which, Gallagher claimed, proved a colleague sexually assaulted her at Waterloo station.

She even went as far as to lie directly to a judge and put forward a fictional witness to the police, Wood Green Crown Court heard.

Gallagher also put forward a fake sick note from a doctor, claiming she had been signed off work for two years to receive cancer treatment, when her employment tribunal against Bunzl was faltering. 

Today at Wood Green Crown Court, Judge Timothy Godfrey sentenced Gallagher to four years and eight months in prison after she admitted three counts of perverting the course of justice.

Louise Gallagher (pictured), 50, produced bogus evidence while suing distribution giant Bunzl for sex discrimination. She also mounted a separate unfair dismissal claim against health product supplier Essity

'It was a prolonged, blatant, and egregious course of conduct, liable to undermine public justice,' the judge said.

'Your conduct was sophisticated and planned, including lying to a tribunal judge on oath.'

The court heard Gallagher was already a convicted fraudster, with convictions from 2015 for stealing £4,500 from her employers before submitting doctored bank statements and a bogus letter from HMRC to try to conceal the missing money.

She was also convicted in 2014 of buying £1,822 of equestrian equipment using bank details stolen from a woman's handbag during an event.

The court heard on Friday that Gallagher maintains that the sexual assault and harassment allegations she made in her employment tribunal claims against Bunzl and Essity were genuine, and says she produced the fake evidence in her 'desperation to be believed'.

The Crown Prosecution Service dropped further charges of perverting the course of justice that alleged Gallagher had also invented the sexual assault allegations, telling the court it does not consider the evidence strong enough to meet the criminal test for pursuing the case.

In her tribunal against Bunzl in 2020 and 2021, Gallagher made a series of false claims that TfL had CCTV footage of her being sexually assaulted by a colleague at Waterloo station.

She doctored a genuine TfL email to support her lie, and maintained the existence of CCTV evidence in false evidence to a judge, even after TfL had confirmed the footage did not exist.

Gallagher was jailed for four years and eight months after she admitted three counts of perverting the course of justice

When that lie was uncovered, Gallagher put forward the fake doctor's sick note to try to delay the tribunal proceedings.

In 2022 and 2023, she invented a witness to a sexual assault allegation which formed part of her tribunal case against Essity.

Gallagher gave a bogus statement to police, posing as the invented witness over email, leading to the man she had accused being questioned under caution.

But police grew suspicious, and they discovered that Gallagher had created the supposed witness's email account and activated the phone after making the sexual assault claim.

The court heard Gallagher was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 but the GP whose name was on the fake sick note said she had not written it.

The handwritten letter created by Gallagher read: 'The claimant is very sick with breast cancer which has spread to other parts of the body so needs years of treatments and some of the tumours can't be operated on until the treatments shrink them.

'Her health must come first and she is currently fighting for her life and this is why we have asked for this case to be postponed for two years.'

Gallagher's claim was thrown out, and she was ordered to pay £8,000 to cover Bunzl's legal costs.

Gallagher's claim of sexual harassment against Essity was only made in response to her being put under investigation for falsifying documents and being dishonest.

That claim was eventually struck out when a judge concluded she had 'repeatedly provided false evidence during the course of these Employment Tribunal proceedings'.

The two companies told the court on Friday that they had been forced to spend tens of thousands of pounds defending Gallagher's claims, and devoted significant resources to investigating the evidence which turned out to be bogus.

At her sentencing hearing, Gallagher produced a character reference from her manager at cleaning company Samsic UK, calling her a 'valued and trusted employee'.

Gallagher, of Marlborough in Wiltshire, pleaded guilty to three counts of perverting the course of justice.

The judge said she will serve one-third of her prison term before being automatically released.